Beethoven and Shakespeare: two thunderbolts that struck Berlioz during his formative years in Paris in the late 1820s and stayed with him throughout his life. In the subtitle of the Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven says "Souvenir de la vie à la campagne, plutôt expression du sentiment que peinture", leaving it to the listener to imagine the scene. Berlioz particularly admired this symphony - the Scène aux champs from the Fantastique is a direct testimony to this. The evocations of rural landscapes and the songs of shepherds may have brought back memories of La Côte-Saint-André and the plain of the Bièvre... Mendelssohn, dear friend of Berlioz's from his youth, composed the overture to of what was to become one of his most famous works, and then wrote the rest of the the rest of the incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream some twenty years later. twenty years later. The plot will be narrated by the actor Lambert Wilson, applauded last year on the Festival stage for his interpretation of Lélio.

Le Cercle de l'Harmonie
Choeur de chambre Les Eléments Jérémie Rhorer, conductor Magali Simard-Galdès, soprano Valentina Stadler, mezzo-soprano Lambert Wilson, narrator

Programme :

Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral

Felix Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream